Sunlight Seems a Blood Smear
by greatunironic
Summary: Cancer and six other things that may never happen, but always could.


Summary: Cancer and six other things that may never happen, but always could.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em.  
  
Etc: My friends tell me I'm evil and say I obsess about death; I say I'm just repressed.  
  
Feedback: It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.  
  
Sunlight Seems a Blood Smear  
  
i: Oh, Captain, My Captain  
  
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed lies in the sick bay, his hands bandaged, but blood still seeping through. They're burned and broken. He lifts them and stares at them, dejectedly.  
  
Nothing will ever be right again. They're cold with disappointment, and he's drowning in the next room. He's sick with apprehension. Life's temporary, he thinks. Nothing will be right. He has failed.  
  
The captain won't be coming back.  
  
ii: The Stars are Not Wanted  
  
When it was decided Malcolm would be on board, Phlox had been informed. So Phlox began to work in his spare time, looking. He searched endlessly. Now, he wonders why he didn't see it before. It was so simple.  
  
The day Malcolm coughed up blood; Phlox knew he didn't have much time. He worked harder than before.  
  
He looks out the window and sees stars. Malcolm had liked stars. Phlox hates them now. Phlox looks at the empty bed. Malcolm had laid there up until a few hours ago. He's gone. He stares at Malcolm's bed, where Malcolm died that day. He's holding the cure for the lung cancer that killed Malcolm. The cure that was minutes too late.  
  
Phlox weeps.  
  
iii: Stigmata  
  
She had been crucified for their cause. She was a martyr for their ways, for what they thought. She gave her life so that others would believe someday.  
  
Hoshi equates her to Christ one day, a few months after her death. He makes the comment and bows her head. Travis whispers, "The needs of many." The table weeps for their savior again.  
  
She hadn't even been human, T'Pol.  
  
iv: Death Knell  
  
It is the non-existent words that ring through the bridge that tells them he is gone.  
  
There is no sound, no static, no voice to reassure. They wait with slightly baited breath to hear his voice. But it doesn't come, it won't ever again. The shuttlepod is dead in the space.  
  
Like the three before him, Travis Mayweather isn't coming home ever again.  
  
v: Bang  
  
It was supposed to be simple. She was to go down with two others and speak with the natives. So easy, so simple; so many ways for it to all go wrong.  
  
When she got there, she didn't know what they really wanted: her. They killed the others and took her. But what they didn't know was what she had up her sleeve. So she used all her training, all that she had been taught; she used everything she had available to her.  
  
And Hoshi Sato went out with a bang. Long live Hoshi Sato.  
  
vi: Catharsis  
  
It is a simple joy to know that your work will do good. Or, at least, that is how Phlox consoles himself. He couldn't save Malcolm, but maybe someone else. He could still save others.  
  
That was what got him through the days after Malcolm's death.  
  
As Phlox sits on the bank of a river on a foreign planet, he knows that this expanse is killing them. Many had died, more are dying; was it worth it? Commander Tucker is cracking under the pressure of running a ship and losing his friends; it isn't worth it.  
  
He just wants it to be over. He wants to go home and forget as best he can. He closes his eyes. He wants it to end. He'll be cleansed then.  
  
Phlox never saw the knife for the Xindi coming.  
  
vii: For Nothing Now Can Come Any Good  
  
They all wear black cotton gloves when they bring their caskets out. First goes the captain (first to die), then Malcolm (innocent death, killed be cancer), the T'Pol (their martyr), and then Travis (dead silence, dead space). There is no body of Hoshi (long live Hoshi) to bear; so an empty casket is brought in her stead. Phlox (knife in the back, floating in a river) is last. Charles follows them all out.  
  
He is the last, he thinks when he is home. Or, at least back at his apartment. Home was Enterprise, with his friends. Friends who now all lay six feet under.  
  
There's not going to be any more violence, he thinks. The world is safe from the Xindi. So why wait, he thinks, looking at the sky from his balcony. It's clouded.  
  
Charles slits his wrists with a knife. His work is done; he's not waiting. He lifts his arms, blood running down them. He wonders who will cry for him when they find his body and he wonders if they'll understand why he did it; he doesn't care. He falls to the ground and feels rain. The sky is crying for him.  
  
He smiles as he dies because he can almost see his friends again.  
  
End 


End file.
